Author: H.L. Mencken

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Characteristics Family Situations

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore; it is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Life

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail and if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Emotions Government Laughter

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Baseball Language Music

Injustice is relatively easy to bear, what stings is justice.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Government Law

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Emotions Intelligence Love

No man can hear his telephone ring without wishing heartily that Alexander Graham Bell had been run over by an ice wagon at the age of four.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Things

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Art Democracy Government Science/Weather

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Democracy Government Politics

Alimony: the ransom the happy pay to the devil.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Divorce Marriage

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Characteristics

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Beliefs Religion Science/Weather

Democracy: The worship of jackals by jackasses.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Democracy Government

If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
America Golf Government Sports

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Age Reading/Writing

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Communication Happiness Language People

I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Emotions Sports

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
People Success

If I ever marry, it will be on a sudden impulse – as a man shoots himself.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Marriage Time

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Marriage Wives

Dachshund: An animal half a dog high by a dog and a half long.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Animals Definitions Dogs